Guide to Evacuate Region Reveals Limitations

"Every jurisdiction is going to have to look at that and come up with their own solutions," he said. "What it does do is give us a common set of priorities we all need to work on."

The guide was compiled as many local governments were expanding their evacuation planning and preparing potential shelters. Northern Virginia has been drawing up a detailed regional plan.

Janet Clements of Virginia's Department of Emergency Planning said it didn't submit the names of large Northern Virginia shelters for the regional evacuation guide because officials were in the process of surveying them. They will eventually be added.

But "there's not a lot of stadiums and convention centers on the Virginia side," she said. The state plans to use its universities as evacuation sites and will try to find more "big box" facilities that can be converted to shelters, she said. For smaller emergencies, schools will generally be used as shelters.

Congress has said the lack of a regional database of evacuation shelters contributed to an "ineffective and inefficient response" to Hurricane Katrina.

Local governments remain divided over revealing their evacuation plans to the public. Montgomery County, for example, does not plan to publicize its evacuation routes or shelters, saying it wants to maintain flexibility depending on the crisis. The District, in contrast, is publishing guides for each of its eight wards, detailing evacuation routes and shelters.

Local officials said they were confident they could work around their differences in a crisis. And they noted that the Red Cross has a complete list of shelters.

David Marin, chief of staff for Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), said that the evacuation guide is important but that it does not go far enough. A resource database "is not a substitute for educating people in advance about what to do" in an emergency, he said.

"Six and a half years after 9/11, we should be further along than this," he said. "We're still not ready for prime time."